How To Play Daily And Weekly Fantasy Football, For Newbies

One of my all time favorite movies is “Swingers” starring a young Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. It starts off with both guys going from California to Vegas. They show up in the casino and lose their $200 hand of BlackJack and then immediate end up playing at the low stakes table.

The worst feeling in the world is putting up big money in one shot then losing your entire bankroll. The same thing can happen in Daily or Weekly Fantasy Sports. A lot of players are hearing advertisements of One Million dollar prizes and it is great for the industry but if you are not careful, you can easily go broke chasing qualifiers if you do not manage your bankroll properly.

Each week, I plan on covering some basic strategies that you can employ in your daily and weekly fantasy sports contests to help you win in the short term and long term.

Here are some of the key to success:

Understand the Scoring System, Roster Format, and Salary Cap

The site I will use an example is Fantasy Feud. They have a basic scoring system that works like most points leagues, with expanded rosters, and a $1 Million salary cap. The best thing about Fantasy Feud is that the expanded roster format allows for more strategy and variance when making lineups. The worst thing in playing daily fantasy sports is when players are owned more than 50% because then the strategy part of the game is minimized. It is no fun playing against someone who has almost the same roster as you.

Before you make your 1st deposit, play in Freerolls and Free Contests

If you have never played weekly salary cap Fantasy Football, I advise that you play in free contests and freerolls (free tournaments) until you feel more comfortable with the site.

Don’t expect to win right away

Reality is this – there are a lot of people playing weekly fantasy football and many of them have been playing for a while with tremendous success. My own personal story goes like this – I started out playing on a few sites and did not win. I had made a few $10 deposits and got very frustrated. So I quit because there were not any resources like the RotoExperts Daily page, Pat Mayo’s Triple Play Videos, or Tony Cincotta’s Daily Nuggets. Cincotta has been playing daily fantasy sports since it started and has won a lot of high stakes contests. If you want to win consistently, you need to hit his article first along with the rest of the RotoExperts.

A year later, I decided to play in some freerolls and I won money. I played through that money on the sites and then started to figure out how to win. I cannot stress enough, you have to keep playing. It is not much fun spending time researching and playing for free, but let’s face it you have to start somewhere.
Make a deposit that you are comfortable with

The minimum deposit on Fantasy Feud is $20. You can allocate this amount each week. For example if you would spend $300-$350 on a season long league, then figure $20 x 17 weeks in a daily/weekly fantasy football site to be equivalent. But you can win back and grow your bankroll each week making it even better to play this format.

Selecting the right contests

Let’s say you make a $300 deposit or you plan on depositing $20 each week of the season. The best rule of thumb is putting 10-20% of your bankroll in play each week.

Here is an example of how to play $60 on Fantasy Feud:

$22 Season Long League (1st place gets $200 and qualifies for the Season Long Showdown in which the top score gets a seat in the $75,000 Feud of Champions)
$22 Entry – $100K Feud of Champions Qualifier
$11 50/50 Double Up to win $20
$5.50 50/50 Double Up to win $10
Adam Ronis Challenge (Free contest – where you can win a shot to play vs. Ronis for $1,000)
$100 NFL Weekly Freeroll

If you are able to win both Double Ups, it allows you to offset your FOC Qualifier and part of your season long entry the 1st week you are playing. The 2nd week, you can start building your bankroll.

By playing in Head-to-Heads and 50/50’s you have a great chance to build up your bankroll and fund your FOC Qualifier. The $10 in Tournament entries give you a shot for upside to win more money. It only takes a couple of top five finishes to build your bankroll.

If you follow a bankroll management plan for each site and sport, you will be much further ahead of the pack when it comes to turning a positive ROI. Also I recommend keeping track of your results each week to see where your success comes from. You can always adjust your money in play for each contest type if you find that some are more profitable than others.

If you end up losing your first week, you can adjust your bankroll in play slightly down to minimize your risk. So in week two, if you need to drop from $60 to $50 it is ok.

These are just some basic bankroll management tips to get you started in your daily fantasy sports career. 50% of winning is based on your player strategy and 50% is your bankroll management. If you are able to master both of these, you will have a very profitable daily fantasy sports portfolio.

Take on RotoExperts’ own Adam Ronis in a FREE Contest each week for a shot to play him in a $1,000 1-on-1 Fantasy Football contest Week 13 on Fantasy Feud!!! CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS